New football season ticket wait list policy

Haven't seen this posted yet...
I got a letter from the U of M Athletic Department today. In a nutshell shell it said that there is no longer a "Season Ticket Wait List" and instead they have started a "Season Ticket Interest List".
• $100 and you will be eligible to be offered individual game tickets and ticket packs.
• $500 and you will be eligible to be offered season tickets.
Neither one is guaranteed and subject to availability.
I guess that's progress. Apparently my $10 from last year didn't go very far.

Seriously, so you give $500 for the chance of paying for an overpriced set of season tickets? And what happend if you are not offered tickets do you get the money back? Is it rolled over to next year, or do you have to give $500 every single year?

Points that accumulate over the years which in turn increase your odds of getting season tix. it is interesting to note that they are asking for five hundred as starter. It was 500/seat to transfer my dads season tix to me.

You can transfer tickets? A member of my family has been keeping a set of tickets alive by not informing the university about a death. Basically because they love the seats and they were a graduation present. Her father just screwed up and put them in his name instead of hers. Does that mean she can call the AD and get them put into her name?

DO NOT say the current ticketholder is deceased; they may take them away from you. That is how my cousin lost his. His brother my other cousin got them back when he had cancer. He past away and the university found out and took them away before they could be transferred.

I do not remember the process but I think that both parties had to agree to the transfer plus money.

So you donate $500 the first year and you might get offered tickets. If you do, the next year you have to pay the PSD per seat to keep them. Would you be gaurunteed this option or would you need to donate another $500 to have the possibility of being offered this option?

Remember all of the scarlet at the 2009 OSU game? "O-H-I-O?" Those were not faithless season ticket holders who had sold out their tickets. Those were "banked" season tickets. Tickets that were abandoned or not renewed by their owners, for several years. Held by our Athletic Department and placed into single-season packages (read: Ticket Brokerages) until the seating adjustments with the aisle and seat widening could be completed.

Now, that work is done, and we are in a period in which about five years' worth of non-renewed season tickets are coming online for sale.

This is now the best time to get in on season tickets since the initiation of the PSD program in about 2006.

And yeah, if any of you are shocked by the notion of paying several hundred or even a few thousand dollars each and every year just to be able to renew your full-price seats... Welcome to the world of PSD's.

The way I'm reading it, the new system requires you to donate a bunch of money to get yourself season tickets. They are saying that "a bunch of money" has to be at least $500 but could be more depending on how many people give more than $500 in $100 increments (cooresponding to priority points).

After that, you need only maintain a minimum donation every year to keep your seats, which is a little to a lot less than $500 depending on how good your seats are (but of course, if you can afford donating enough to get the priority points to get seats on the 50 yard line, $500/year for that zone is probably not a big deal).

Also, being a graduate, former athlete, etc really helps boost your priority points, but you still have to fork over the $500 the first time if you don't already have season tickets.

If you donated $100 this year you got 2 tickets in the end zone. I donated $500 and was offered 4 in the Blue section which is a sideline ticket but on the goal line. The donation is tax deductible and I think I need to donate 75 or 100 per seat plus the ticket cost to renew. It will be much tougher to get seats after this season though because donations are already way up (as reported by the Athletic Department) and people are loving Brady Hoke which means fans and alumni who abandoned Rodriguez will come back in droves.

When I was a student I worked at the ticket office for a few months and it was still a true waitlist. You literally had to wait for tens of thousands of people to pass away before you get tickets. All considered, I like this way better. You just need to pony up the cash.

$100 - gets your foot in the door. You will be offered the 4-packs etc before the public has a chance to get them. You will likely be offered single games before the public gets at them. I picked up 8 to OSU this year by this method. You will be given 1 priority point for your $100 donation that carries forward as long as you make a minimum $100 donation annually. Ex. $100 donation for 2 years gives you 2 priority points.

$500 - from what it sounds like, they have deemed that a $500 donation (or 5 priority points) should be enough to be offered season tickets.

You can donate annually $100 to keep your priority points active until you reach the threshold at which point you will be offered seasons tickets.

Once you are offered seasons tickets, you must pay a PSD that rises incrementally as the seats get better. Endzone tickets are $50/seat iirc. This PSD is paid annually and counts as a contribution to your priority point total, which will then allow you to move to better seats, first crack at visiting games, and parking passes.

I donated $100 in january 2009 just to get a priority point and hope to get something. A few months later I was offered renewable season tickets (i was expecting end zone, but they are in sec 20). I must have got in at the right time, becasue it sounds like that wouldnt get me much now.

This DOES NOT affect alumni ticket package offerings. I double checked with the alumni association and Athletic depart and both confirmed that alumni ticket packages (the buy an EMU, get a ND tix deal) will still be offered. This letter is only about season ticket package waitlists and the early game package buy in for people on the new waitlist. So if you're scoring at home, the order for ticket availability is:

1. Paid and existing season ticket holders for full season tickets

2. Student season ticket holders

3. 2-4 game packages for paid waitlist members

4. Single game packages for paid waitlist members

5. Alumni association ticket offers (single game & packages)

6. General public single games

Bottom line: If you don't want to pay for your name on the season ticket waitlist per the new policy, you can still get tickets through your alumni association offer in the late spring or waiting for general public single game tickets. Or pay over face value on stubhub / ebay / etc.

Michigan football tickets are now so expenisve, it's unbelievable. I mean that literally - I can't believe it. I know we have a large and passionate fan-base, but the amount of people who have this kind of coin seems like it would be limited compared to our huge capacity, but I assume they've done the analysis that there is a market there for the 30-40% of our seats that require this fee.

The wonderful thing is these donations are 80% tax-exempt. In these trying budgetary times, I can't believe some budget hawk politician hasn't brought up this fact that hundreds of universities are doing this. Probably b/c their well-off/rich constituents (who are the ones buying these tickets) come from both the left & right and would scream bloody murder. A true bi-partisan cause.